The invention relates to an apparatus for lifting articles, especially packs, for forming dischargeable stacks from packs delivered on a conveyor.
In many different fields of the packaging technique it can be necessary to lift and vertically stack packs or the like. It is of particular advantage to form individual pack groups, from which pack bundles can then be produced by means of packing machines. The pack bundles consist either a of several individual packs of single-layered arrangement being connected by an outer wrapping or they consist of pack rows of double- or multi-layered arrangement, like for instance those of paper tissue packs.
An apparatus of the afore-described species is already known from DE-OS 2 206 437 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,504). The apparatus disclosed in this publication, however, has the disadvantage of being of relatively complicated construction and having longitudinally shiftable parts in addition to rotating parts for lifting the packs.
DE-AS 1 127 810 teaches an apparatus wherein the packs are solely held by frictional forces with brushes arranged in vertical direction of the stacking channel engaging the side walls of the packs. Such a frictional fixing of the packs has in practical operation proved to be insecure and prone to cause operating failures. Moreover, a high driving power is needed for overcoming the frictional forces. Such a solution in particular limits the range of application of such apparatuses to light and dimensionally stable packs.